I feel like my heart is doing great. I've started the local rehab programme (more to come on that), and while I'm out of shape my heart seems to be recovering well and working properly. I feel like my energy levels are at least at pre-surgery levels.

I have to trust that bone healing continues apace. I continue to have no pain and have not experienced any "instability or clicking", the two things that I'm frequently told to look out for. The sternum has three parts, and I'm having somewhat different sensations from each. From top to bottom, they are the manubrium, the body, and the xiphoid.

The body of my sternum seems to be doing perfectly. No pain, no instability, no tenderness to the touch, and no unusual sensation no matter my movement. Ideal, by my reckoning.

The manubrium is interesting. It's a thick bone filled with marrow, so I think it takes a lot longer to heal than the thinner body and xiphoid. Mine evidently cooperated with the surgical saw, as my incision only extends as high as the junction between the manubrium and body. Post surgery, the area between the top of my incision and my clavicle was quite swollen. Having seen various pictures of other patients post-op, this is definitely normal. My swelling is much less now, but the area is still tender to the touch. No pain, no instability, and no sensation when I move in any way, but if I poke at it it's sore.

The xiphoid is the lowest part of the sternum, the little nub extending below the lowest point where the ribs connect to the sternum. Again, there's no pain, no instability, and no tenderness, but here there is a real feeling of stretching out whenever I extend the front of my body, especially after slouching at a desk or sitting with poor posture on a couch. A good reminder to focus on proper posture.

In broad strokes, I'm mostly back to normal. Having started rehab I'm cleared to exercise and I have good guidelines on how to do that safely. I'll post about all that in more detail than you're probably interested in, but it's good for me to walk myself through everything. I still can't do any real lifting and so I'm not capable of wrangling my toddler on my own, so I'm still leaning quite heavily on my dear wife for that. But I'm pleased with how things are going and I'm looking forward to progressing even further. I see my cardiologist and my surgeon this coming week.